Monday, July 31, 2006

Thank you, Danimal, for your record reviews. I drove up to Danbury this weekend and burned some CDs for the car, so I'd like to add some quick reviews of my own. By the way, the reason I was burning CDs is that I couldn't find my iTrip attachment for my iPod. Jason, do you by chance have this? I remember I brought it to Harford. Anyway, here goes (ratings on a scale of 0-10):

1) Belle & Sebastian, If You're Feeling Sinister: pretty good stuff from the wuss rock kings. Their first album--Tiger Milk--is a lot better, but this one's pretty solid too (7.0).2) The Byrds, Sweetheart of the Rodeo: I burned this b/c I saw that the Guardian had included it in its "50 Most Influential Albums" list. I'm sucker for any kind of list. This was the first so-called "country rock" album, but it's more country than rock. Gram Parsons plays on most of these songs. I liked it a lot, an excellent album, but if you don't like bluegrass/country as a rule, stay away (7.5).3) Neko Case, And the Tigers Have Spoken: More country-fried shit. She's got awesome pipes. This is a live album, and most live albums suck, but this one's good. The same country/bluegrass warning from (2) applies, however. (7.0)4) Jesus & Mary Chain, Darklands: I loved this one in college and had the cassette. Not as good listening to it now, which surprised me. But still not bad (6.75).5) New Pornographers, Mass Romantic: I was especially psyched for this one b/c it got great reviews and I'd heard some songs on it that I liked a lot. Which made it all the more disappointing, it just kind of got on my nerves after a while. The good songs are really good, but there's only like three or four of those, and most involve Neko Case (see (3)) (5.0).

2 comments:

I haven't listened to Mass Romantic, but I love the other two albums from the New Pornographers (Electric Version and Twin Cinema). I love Honey's Dead by the J&MC. I'm going to listen to Darklands this afternoon.